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soupapalooza!

the stories
the kitchen
the market
the proof (party pics!)
the food porn
the recipes
the about
the drop me a line part
the resources
the full list
jewelry alchemy
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BLT salad: presented in all its delicious glory without a side of ennui

The BLT is one of my favorite comfort foods. In the late summer, when tomatoes are at their ripest, most delicious selves, I almost always come home from the farmer's market with a loaf of french bread, heirloom tomatoes and greens (there is always bacon in my refrigerator, always always always), and they quickly become the almost-instant-gratification expression of delight-- a juicy, delicious and meaty sandwich. And as much as I love tomatoes any way I can get them (minus from other people's refrigerators, naturally, because that makes them all mealy), I have a particular fascination with mayonnaise, too. So between the french stuff, the artisanal hipster stuff from Brooklyn with the chile tinge and the perfect workhorse, Hellman's (or Best Foods if you're west of the Rockies), there are many delicious versions to always keep me interested and to highlight the perfect sandwich. 

When I was planning the breakfast-palooza! menu, I had a hard time figuring out how to work in a proper green salad with the circus of carbohydrates I was offering up. It occurred to me that even though it wasn't summer ​and tomatoes aren't really in season, except, of course, here in Southern California where most produce is pretty much in season all the time, and BLTs aren't really a breakfast food at all, they still pop up on brunch menus sometimes and they would probably taste great next to all the other stuff I was planning to force into the arteries of my guests. 

And I was right. This salad is quick, delicious, and Rachel Zoe is somewhere in a corner, furiously shoving it into her mouth whispering, "I die" to anyone within earshot. I would make it as an entire meal for two and eat the whole thing myself.

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PostedFebruary 26, 2013
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriespositively piggy, salad, breakfast
Tagsbacon is best, piggy piggy piggy, positively piggy, BLT salad, recipe, soupapalooza!, breakfast-palooza!, crouton, mayonnaise malaise, someone get Rachel Zoe a cheeseburger STAT, tomato
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homefry potato soup with hashbrown, bacon breadcrumbs, fried egg & sriracha: there's a whole lotta bacon goin' on

I have been yammering on and on and on about how I am going to do a breakfast-palooza for almost an entire year. Yes, since LAST APRIL when I did my TV dinner soupapalooza. I am nothing if not a sloth when it comes to executing all the little delights my underutilized brain can conjure...of course, when I dream up these little delights they are always executed quickly, perfectly and I'm wearing a beautiful party dress that doesn't get any food on it. I really loves me an imaginary Best Case Scenario.

After all the plotting and thinking and reality TV watching (please feel more than free to judge me since I judge everyone else ALL THE TIME) I got off my duff and decided to get back on the soup program. Actually I was nudged by a friend who was coming to town for a quick visit and who also wanted to pack in seeing as many people as possible at one time as she could, which worked out well for me because just like starting a blog to ensure that I actually completed the cooking challenge I set for myself, this was a good way to make sure I didn't puss out. Because I do have a tendency to really, spectacularly puss out. Just ask my friend Delia about how I pretended to tighten the tension on the spinning bike in her class, and about the fact that I still almost fell down the stairs after the class because I've been sitting on my ass for A YEAR. And please forgive my Kanye-ALL-CAPS-I'M-YELLING-AT-YOU emphasis, but I think it's necessary to really MAKE MY POINT.

Anyway, I dreamed (dreamt?) up a pretty ambitious menu, though, like I said earlier, I never think it's all that ambitious (and why am I always so cute in these daydreams?) until 30 people are in my house and there are no pigs in a blanket for them to much on while I toss the salad. I consider that a party fail, though I have learned along this journey that it's usually more important to have the drinks ready than the proverbial pu pu platter as guests arrive, or maybe that's just because I have pretty boozy friends, I don't know, but whatever works.

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PostedFebruary 19, 2013
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriesbreakfast, soup
Tagsrecipe, soupapalooza!, breakfast-palooza!, eggscellent, eggcellent, sriracha, hashbrowns, potatoes, bacon is best, piggy piggy piggy, positively piggy, turkey, turkey sausage patties, breakfast sausage pigs in a blanket, pigs in a blanket, maple butter, waffles, blueberry, blueberry compote, BLT salad, cinnamon ice cream, cinnamon buns, maple ice cream, homefry, homemade chicken stock, homefry soup, yup. it's a shit show, not even close to vegetarian
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Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday: road trips and alcohol are awesome diversionary tactics

Just in case you're wondering where I've been, which of course I know you breathlessly have been, I've been pinned under a pile of Get Your Shit Together, Girl. Reentry is such a tremendously whiny  little bitch. 

My little August adventure proved to be a fantastic distraction from my real life here in LA, but as I learned when I was taking Physics in college, if you ignore a problem (or 10 problems) long enough, they most certainly do not go away by themselves unless you bribe the TA. I was so hopeful then, as I am now, that the opposite is true because I never learn. Also because I seem to love the sound of my head hitting the wall or the palm of my hand, depending on the severity of my denial.

It's still hotter than hell here in LA. Not a turning leaf or a cashmere sweater in sight, in fact. But technically it is fall in this fair land of ours, and it is a very fair land, indeed, as I discovered on a little road trip this last week, a journey that I accepted in an effort to delay the getting out from under the Get Your Shit Together, Girl pile even further.

I was invited to tag along with a friend who was driving a car and her dog, a black lab appropriately named Demon, from Chicago to Los Angeles along with another mutual friend (we will heretofore be known as Thelma, Thelma and Louise)... 

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PostedSeptember 28, 2012
Authormelissa mcclure
Categorieslibations
Tagsthelma thelma and louise, fish sauce, cajun, recipe, tomato, cornichon, libations, bloody mary, bacon is best, demon dog, sunday bloody mary sunday, grand canyon, roadtrip, LA, soupapalooza!, my brother's prom date, piggy piggy piggy, Get Your Shit Together, chicago, facedown in a tray of fried, random hausfrau, horseradish
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aged cheddar and belgian ale: taking the soup of shame after feeling like Pig Pen (or the kid who smelled in first grade) because of the rat in my engine compartment

I have dreaded writing this post. So much so that I have waited until Thursday to actually use my fingers to strike the keys and compose a thought. All week long I’ve been thinking about cute little anecdotes to relay just how much my life is like this wacky, sexy little 30 minute dramedy on the WB (I still think I’m closer to 20 than to 40, by the way, and I definitely don’t think I’m cool cool or edgy enough for HBO since I’m not a vampire, a writer/shoe whore or a part of an all-male celebrity pack of roving, explosive testosterone). Sure I’ve suffered some dating disappointments and some career drama, but through sheer pluck and charm I am managing to have enlightening adventures and overcome it all in the neat, time allotted package. And at the end of this little episode, there is some kind of cute clarity or epiphany and then there is what is always needed to carry anyone to the next foray-- hope. The truth is a whole hell of a lot murkier than this. A lot less hopeful. The truth is, well, kind of antithetical to the life I’ve formulated for myself in my head. You know the one. The one where I’m just a late bloomer and I’m really adorable and really successful in my own slightly neurotic yet sweet way, and that people will certainly discover this about me very soon... the truth is not so simple or cute or formatted to fit your television.

I’ve kind of been living in the place where I want to have hope for my future like I did when I was graduating from college-- when any and everything was possible and laid at my feet, and even if a bad thing happened it would be a well earned lesson and a humorous story for future cocktail parties-- but I’m going to have to admit to myself, sooner or later, that I am living in a real, not made for TV world. A world where my OB/ GYN reduced me to tears during my last pelvic exam by telling me that I am-- shock of all shocks-- 38 years old and if I want to pass on my genes I should consider freezing my eggs for a mere 15 grand (for a college grad I am shockingly unaware of my lack of reproductive immortality and with the fact that money is necessary in the whole exchange for goods and services thing). And maybe I should be a little more honest about thinking that everyone gets a happy ending and that mine is just around the bend; maybe I should just recognize that my business just might fail, that I just might have to really downsize and that great love might not be on the horizon. It is so not a sexy or happy thought, but it is my truth; maybe the more I acknowledge and make friends with this reality the less shitty I’ll feel...

And back in reality... I was on my way to a BBQ at the house of the Girl Whose Name Sounds Better Pronounced as an Indian Food Dish when my car decided to basically blow up for the second time since March. I feel really lucky that I have a car, luckier that it chooses to function 99% of the time, and luckiest that it’s paid for. What I feel less good about is the crap English (even though it’s really a Ford) engineering and the fact that it is eight years old and skirts dangerously close to the whole explode at any time thing. 

So I take the car in to the service center without an appointment, which already outs me as a manner-less ne’er do well, and I plop myself down on the couch in the lobby while I wait for a rental car. My service advisor lets me know that he’s going to go look for “overt” signs of trouble in the engine before I take off and I warn him that my car is, quite possibly, the dirtiest car in southern California, no judging please, I do take care of my possessions, really, not that he needs or cares to know any of this information. He comes back a few minutes later with a somewhat disdainful look on his face and his hands uncomfortably clenched (I can see through his pleated khakis) in his pockets.

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PostedJune 16, 2010
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriessoup, positively piggy
Tagscheddar, ale, soup, recipe, soup with a side of ennui, soupapalooza!, freeze your eggs but not those eggs, pig pen, car sick, market greens, salad, radish, red velvet, red velvet ice cream sandwich, ice cream, cheesecake ice cream, white trash wheat thin nachos, jalapeño, bacon is best, piggy piggy piggy, positively piggy
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goldsmith, sometime costume designer and badass cat owner. 

goldsmith, sometime costume designer and badass cat owner. 

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Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.

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